CRM 3301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Left Realism
8 Oct 2019
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Lecture 4: September 16th
Solutions suggested by left realism
- Intervention strategies
- Not saying replace capitalism
- Let’s look at neighborhoods that have been impoverish and give them better
opportunities
- Economically, socially, and politically marginalized and invest in these communities
Left realism
- Social democratic imperative policing
o A community would trust its police if the latter shared its priorities in terms of
focusing on the crimes that the community defined as serious and by the policing
methods that it regarded as legitimate
▪ Policing through community
▪ Community has a say
o Minimal policing
▪ Maximum public initiation of police action; minimum necessary coercion
by the police; minimal police intervention; limits on police powers
- Criticism of left realism
o They don’t have they own original theoretical insight on crime and crime control
▪ They are bowering and revamping from marxist
o Don’t pay enough attention to the state
▪ Don’t talk about the state and how the state shapes criminological
processes
o Focus too much on crime committed by lower class black youth
▪ Even though they look at structures because they focus on this group
they reaffirm certain stereotypes because they pay attention too much
▪ Don’t look enough at white colour crime, upper class
o Don’t look enough at gender
▪ Acknowledge that women are highly victimized in working class
communities but don’t focus on it theoretically and don’t look at certain
issues such as patriarchy
